Maybe they’re right. Maybe I can handle this. I take a deep breath and finish my coffee.
There’s no turning back now. The decision is made, the door shut behind me with a quiet, irreversible click. Somehow, I have to walk into that office Monday morning and exist in the same space as the man who broke my heart into a thousand pieces, and I have to do it without falling apart. Without letting him see what he did to me. Without losing my mind.
But first, I need to find an apartment.
Chapter 5
The thought of driving to Lantern Bridge every single day siphons the enthusiasm right out of me. Forty-five minutes one way if traffic cooperates, which it never does, because everyone in Maplewood Springs apparently agreed to commute downtown at the same exact time. Ninety minutes a day, five days a week, spent white-knuckling the steering wheel while my coffee cools into bitter sadness and my playlist loops for the third time. That’s seven and a half hours a week I could be sleeping, binge-watching, or doing literally anything that doesn’t involve brake lights and road rage.
And when deadlines loom, when campaigns need babysitting until midnight, the commute stops being annoying and starts being nerve wrecking. The last thing I want is to be on those mountain roads half-awake, exhaustion tugging at my eyelids, squinting into the dark and trying to decide whether that shape at the edge of my headlights is a deer…or just my brain finally begging for mercy.
Some people find driving therapeutic. I find it to be more of a chore than anything else. Back in New York, the subway solved everything, crowded and occasionally smelling like someone’s forgotten lunch, sure, but at least I could read, zone out, or stare into the void without risking multiple lives.
In my hometown, public transportation consists of exactly three bus routes, and they stop running at 8 p.m. sharp, like the whole town turns into a pumpkin and expects you to have your own carriage.
So, when the call came, when I found out I’d landed the interview at Lantern Bridge, dream-job territory despite the Jake Matthews complication, my first thought wasn’t about salary negotiations or what blazer would make me look like a competent adult. It was one single, urgent truth: I need an apartment downtown. Walking distance. Immediately.
My parents didn’t argue when I mentioned apartment hunting. Dad looked relieved, like he’d already pictured me stumbling in at 2 a.m. after deadline nights.
Mom, practical as always, said living close to work meant more time for “actual living” and less time doing “that thing where you talk to yourself in traffic and come home looking like you’ve been through war.”
She knows me well.
With a large box cradled awkwardly under my arm, I hover outside my new apartment building in downtown Maplewood Springs while Dad eases his truck into a parallel spot with the kind of casual competence that puts my own attempts to shame. If I were behind the wheel, we’d be parking for twenty minutes.
I stare up at what will be home for the foreseeable future. It isn’t the gleaming high-rise from my post-college fantasies. It’s red brick with suspicious stains near the roofline, crooked fire escapes crawling up its face like metal ivy, and paint chips thatflutter away from the front door every time someone enters or exits, like the building is slowly shedding its skin.
But it’s mine. My new home.
The apartment sits smack in the heart of downtown, where the sidewalks actually pulse with life and farmers’ markets pop up on weekends like someone cracked open a jar of summer and spilled it straight onto the street. Twinkling lights hang overhead on those charming lamp posts, giving everything the illusion of perpetual celebration. And the best part? It’s walking distance to Lantern Bridge.
This energy. This independence. It’s what I’ve wanted, what I’ve pictured during long nights in college.
But now it’s here, real and concrete and slightly intimidating.
Mom hops out of the truck first, lifting a hand to shade her eyes from the afternoon sun as she squints up at the building like she’s assessing a mildly suspicious casserole. “Well,” she says, nodding once, “this is… cozy.”
The word lands with that particular brand of forced optimism she reserves for things she’s not entirely sold on but wants to support anyway. She tugs at her cardigan, smoothing invisible wrinkles, straightening herself like posture can fix questionable real estate.
“It has its charms,” I say, shifting the box higher against my hip, voice breezy enough to pass for confidence. I try very hard not to look at one of those so-called charms: a pigeon on the stoop, inspecting what appears to be yesterday’s pizza crust.
The great thing about apartments in Maplewood Springs? The price tag doesn’t induce cardiac arrest. This third-floor walkup costs less than half my cramped Brooklyn shoebox.
Of course, the listing photos were…selective. They somehow failed to capture the fire escape’s concerning tilt, or the way the bricks seem to sag in places, as if the building itself is tired after a long day and no longer has the energy to hold its posture.
Dad hefts one of the heavier boxes from the truck bed with a grunt, his shoulders bunching beneath his flannel as if the fabric might surrender. “Let’s get this show on the road,” he announces, then stacks two smaller boxes on top, creating a wobbling tower he balances against his chest with the steady confidence of a man who has never met a bad idea he couldn’t muscle through. Like a Jenga master, if Jenga involved herniated discs.
I grab one of the lighter boxes, photos and books I couldn’t bear to leave behind, but my heart still races like I’m hauling a grand piano up Everest. My palms go damp against the cardboard. My breath comes too fast.
Because new beginnings have a weight all their own.
The stairs protest beneath my sneakers, each wooden step creaking with dramatic indignation as we climb to the third floor. The hallway is narrow, dimmer than it should be, and it smells faintly of bleach layered over decades-old carpet, with a whisper of something cinnamony underneath, like someone once tried to make this place feel like home and the attempt never fully faded.
It isn’t unpleasant. Just…lived in. A building with stories pressed into its walls.
When we reach the landing, my forward momentum halts. Directly in front of my apartment door, 302, the brass numbers hanging slightly askew like even they’re embarrassed, sits an abandoned bike with rusted handlebars.
And beside it is a hulking puke-green sofa that looks like it was manufactured sometime during the Nixon administration.
